Justin Bieber’s windblown blond helmet does more win over the ladies; it also protects his head from incoming projectiles.

It came in handy late last year at a promotional gig for a Sacramento, Calif. radio station. This video, recently uploaded to You Tube, shows a mostly full water bottle bounding towards the Biebster’s noggin’ and hitting him square in the head. Ouch!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0GjKiy3nSI&w=640&h=390]

To Goldilocks’s credit (and to the surprise of millions), he did not blubber like a newborn after sustaining the direct hit.

“That didn’t feel good,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know why she just threw that at me.”

Then he played on.

Props to Mr. Bieber for taking the high road. Once puberty takes hold in earnest and he’s required to shift careers, he would be well-suited to become Akon’s on-stage anger management counsellor.

Rejected, though perfectly useful, words like “smushables” (grocery items one needs to pack on top so they don’t get squished) and “fumb” (it refers to your big toe, but is so much more efficient) live out their days in this verbatory (verbal purgatory – I made it up!) at the language authority’s headquarters in England.

All of the words were submitted to Oxford University Press for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary, but didn’t make the cut. Before computers, word “obscurators” put failed neologisms on 6-by-4-inch cards and filed them in a vault. Today, the rejects go into digital storage.

22-year-old graphic designer Luke Ngakane learned of the repository’s existence while researching “non-words” for a university project.

It’s almost the weekend. Since it’s summer, city dwellers can be assured of two things: there will be a lively street festival in at least corner of the city, and construction will frustrate motorists trying to navigate the roadways.

The always-popular Taste of the Danforth festival takes place this weekend in Greektown. Danforth Avenue between Broadview and Jones avenues will be closed from 11 a.m. on Friday until midnight on Sunday to accommodate hungry revellers.

Due to road work, the Gardiner will be closed in both directions from the Don Valley Parkway to the Humber River from 2 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday morning.

As always, have fun, stay safe and plan your route accordingly.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/weekend-preview-fun-and-road-closures/feed/0stdStudy: The best poker face may be a ‘trustworthy’ onehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/the-best-poker-face-may-be-a-trustworthy-one-study
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/the-best-poker-face-may-be-a-trustworthy-one-study#commentsWed, 04 Aug 2010 15:53:45 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=18392

Researchers from several American universities collaborated to examine how poker players’ facial expressions affect opponents’ decisions. They found a expression that suggests trustworthiness (soft eyes, relaxed brows and a slight, closed-lipped smile) is more effective at fooling opponents than neutral or “untrustworthy” expressions.A sympathetic face causes other players to make more mistakes (fold prematurely, for example) and to take longer to make decisions.

It may be too early to bet one’s life saving on a couple of rounds of Texas Hold ‘em, though. The researchers studied only 14 novice pokers players who completed a total of 300 hands – hardly enough data to establish a rock-solid conclusion.

The CBC has reported the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office does not know precisely what caused the 2008 explosion and fire at the Sunrise Propane fueling site in the the Toronto’s north end.

In confidential documents obtained by the broadcaster, the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office reports that gas hose leak and a “mechanical failure” contributed to the blast, but the immediate cause of ignition is still – and could remain – a mystery.

Explosions at the site rattled northwest Toronto on the morning of Aug. 10, 2008, killing Parminder Singh Saini, a Sunrise Propare employee, and damaging homes, business and public buildings in the vicinity. District Chief Bob Leek, a 25-year firefighting veteran, was killed battling the blaze.

According to the CBC:

The report says an illegal “tank-to-tank transfer was in progress at the time of the accident” and a propane leak resulted from a hose failure.

About six minutes before the explosion, the leaked liquid propane turned to vapour, the report says. That vapour cloud ignited, but the investigators said they don’t know the exact cause.

In a statement, Ward 9 Councillor Maria Augimeri said the the report is “a clear indictment of the provincial government and its failure to assure community safety,” and she calls for stricter regulation of the propane industry.

She said the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, the agency that monitors the storage and distribution of gas on behalf of the Ontario government, takes a “cavalier attitude” towards community safety and that it operates without the interests of community residents in mind.

Complainants have filed a major class-action lawsuit against Sunrise Propane and the site’s proprietors.

The city has had many nicknames and slogans, both official and unofficial. Some were generic and non-descript. Some would be too silly, too crude, too boring or too arcane to plaster up on official signage. And others fit.

Peter Redman/National PostWould more visitors come to Toronto if it had a better slogan?

But though the Torontoist contest won’t likely have any bearing on Hogtown tourist campaigns, residents will have great incentive to invent a stellar slogan: bragging rights! In recent weeks, Torontonians demonstrated they are sensitive about their city’s reputation. What better way to prove their hometown’s dominance than to unveil the best slogan of any Canadian burg?

But beware, Toronto denizens: cities and towns across Canada have put up some fierce competition.

Thunder Bay, Ont. has branded itself “Superior by Nature,” a double entendre that references Thunder Bay’s perch on the shore of the largest of the Great Lakes.

Have a big ol’ hearty laugh for the prairie town that made the following its slogan: “New York is big, but this is Biggar.” Saskatchewan, that is. Yes, Biggar, Sask. went there. For better or for worse, Toronto isn’t fortunate enough to have a name that rhymes with a commonly used comparative adjective. Plus, we’re “Toronto the Good,” not “Toronto the better.”

The only way to thoroughly put across the absurdity of this development is to communicate the plans for this via list. Fasten your seat belts! Here are the top five most bizarre things you need to know about the upcoming Bieber biopic:

Justin Bieber will play Justin Bieber. Who better than Sir Goldilocks to depict the rags-to-riches story of a Stratford, Ont. native born to a teen mom who turns into the world’s biggest teen-pop punchline? With the bashful, syrupy-voiced youth in the lead role, the flick promises to be Generation Z’s “8 Mile.” No word on whether Paramount Pictures is pursuing Meryl Streep for the role of the singer’s bewildered, over-protective mother.

Davis Guggenheim, who directed the “An Inconvenient Truth,” will helm the project. Unless it throws us a massive curveball, the Bieber film is set to be Mr. Guggenheim’s most popular work not to prominently feature a Powerpoint presentation. No stranger to capturing the life and times of this century’s most influential figures, Mr. Guggenheim directed a short bio of U.S. President Barack Obama that screened at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The movie will come out Feb. 11, 2001,just in time for Valentine’s Day. Barf!

The release of Mr. Bieber’s memoirs will precede the film. Justin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever: My Story will come out in October, which will put the cherubic 16-year-old’s tome in competition with Mark Twain’s autobiography, due in November (as per the scribe’s request, the book will see light of day one century after his death). Given the nascency of the pop star’s career, Mr. Bieber will likely have fodder for scores of sequels. Though the quality of his prose is an unknown quantity, the Bieber saga could emerge as The Second World War for the 21st Century. Well, maybe not, given the Biebster’s flimsy grasp of geography.

Participants will don virtual reality gear and navigate digital avatars through a realm of tween angst and subtle titillation. A player will have the ability to control one character and jump to another in the same scene.

With a price tag of $434,000, the contraption was created to promote abstinence to adolescents.

Update 11:58 a.m.:You picked a dandy day to stock up on cosmetics: @ohsoswe3t On my way to the eatoncentre finally! If MAC doesn’t have the colour I want I’m gonna be pissed-_-

Update 11:45 a.m.: A blogger in Singapore (who has a sage namesake) gives his assessment of the new iPhone:@miyagi From my initial testing of the #iPhone4, I can say that the death grip problem is overrated, and that Americans have fat fingers.

Update 11:00 a.m:Great tweet from an enterprising mall-walker: @SnozWrap I’m in line at the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple Store -Not for an iPhone 4, but because they’re handing out coffee and sandwiches.

Update 10:50 a.m.: One passerby estimated several hundred people are still in line at the Apple Store, many of whom don’t look happy. He described it as “quite an orderly scene” and said Apple employees “were distributing Tim Hortons coffee to keep people happy.” Most people in line had earlier iPhone models or iPods, he said. The cult of Apple, indeed.

Update 10:43 a.m.: Reports on Twitter of the Apple Store at the Eaton Centre running out of the new iPhone are false. The Apple Store has confirmed they still have stock left, but do not know how much.

The View’sarch-Republican Elisabeth Hasselbeck has an interesting hypothesis about middle-aged lesbians: older women enter into same-sex relationships because men their age chase after pretty-young-things, she said.

“All the older men are going for younger women, leaving the women with no one,” she said.

Joy Behar, another View co-host, immediately retorted that Ms. Hasselbeck’s claims were “ridiculous” and that women do not suddenly choose lesbianism later in life.

“Being gay is not just holding hands and walking through the tulips,” Ms. Behar said. “I don’t think that you suddenly wake up and say, ‘You know, I think I want to do that.’ You wanted to do it; you were just trapped in a system that said ‘get married.’

Tune into our live blog starting at 11 a.m. ET as we cover U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the show. With any luck, Ms. Hasselbeck will enlighten us with her theories about the real cause of BP oil spill and why so many Americans are unemployed.

While a man dressed in a yellow rooster suit lurked nearby, George Smitherman’s campaign manager Bruce Davis called Rob Ford “chicken” for refusing to participate in a one-on-one talk radio debate with Mr. Smitherman.

“I’m completely dumbfounded by this,” Mr. Davis told a group of reporters in front of City Hall on Wednesday. “I cannot remember the last time that a candidate for mayor refused to debate.”

Last week, while speaking on Newstalk 1010, Mr. Smitherman challenged Mr. Ford to an on-air debate. On Tuesday, Mr. Ford’s brother and campaign manager, Doug Ford, said on the radio his brother will not enter a head-to-head debate with another candidate until at least mid-September.

When asked whether the man in the chicken suit was a Smitherman campaign operative, Mr. Davis was coy. He did say he concurred with the disguised man, who clucked and said intermittently, “Rob Ford: No Plan, Afraid to Debate” and held a sign that featured the same phrase.

“We’ve been calling on Rob Ford to debate the issues; we’ve been calling on Rob Ford to discuss his plans,” Mr. Davis said.

Adrienne Batra, spokewoman for the Ford campaign said her candidate is not fazed by being called a chicken. “Mr. Ford has been called a lot worse things by a lot better people.”

Statistics Canada released its most recent numbers on Canada’s criminal justice system, giving Canadians a broad picture of how many (and what types of) cases pass through this country’s courts.

Adult criminal courts in Canada dealt with approximately 390,000 cases involving nearly 1.2 million charges during the 2008-2009 fiscal year, roughly the same number it processed the year before. However, there were 3% more criminal cases this past year than there were in 2006-2007. Ah, the golden days…

Anyone wager a guess as to the most common cases? Mail fraud? Indecent exposure? Operating a common bawdy house?

Close, but not quite. If you guessed impaired driving, you’re very astute (or much too experienced).

Impaired driving cased accounted for 11% of all cases that were processed in criminal court. Theft (8%), common assault (9%), failure to comply with a court order (9%) and breach of probation (8%) rounded out the top five. Together, these offences accounted for almost half of all criminal court cases.

StatsCan reports criminal court cases involved a disproportionate number of younger adults. Persons aged 18 to 24 were involved in 31% of all adult criminal court cases, even though that age group only represented 12% of the population – and there wasn’t even a G20 in that fiscal year.

In 2008-2009, the median time for a case to pass through court was 124 days, down from 128 days in 2004-2005. The long-term trend is less heartening: the median time to case completion in 2000-2001 was 101 days.

Two-thirds of all adult criminal cases culminated in a guilty verdict. Perhaps surprisingly, the accused pleaded guilty in 59% of all completed cases.

Exponents of tough justice may be dismayed to learn the most common sentence given to offenders found to be guilty was probation (legalese for court-ordered friendship), which was handed down in 45% of all guilty cases. But don’t worry, law-and-order buffs, courts often impose multiple sentences for the same guilty finding – meaning an offender could do jail time, receive a fine and go on probation.

Police released this sketch of man suspected in a sexual assault that occurred in April.

Police have released a composite sketch of a man suspected in a sexual assault that occurred in April.

On April 11, 2010, the female victim and her friend went a bar near Bathurst and College streets. Police say the perpetrator, who said his name was Mario, attended the same bar and later sexually assaulted the woman, who was incapacitated.

Police are asking anyone with information to call 416−808−7474 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 416-222-8477.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/police-release-sketch-of-sex-assault-suspect/feed/0stdKey Speakers At The World Business ForumsuspectsketchRob Ford never assaulted me: former playerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/rob-ford-never-assaulted-me-former-player
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/rob-ford-never-assaulted-me-former-player#commentsWed, 28 Jul 2010 13:10:06 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=17185

Jonathan Gordon, now a 25-year-old soldier, denied Mr. Ford touched him during during a 2001 football game at an Oakville private school, but confirms he and Mr. Ford had a verbal altercation.

Mr. Gordon played as a free safety on the Newtonbrook Secondary School football team that Mr. Ford coached.

Mr. Ford’s campaign came on the defensive after, on July 14, the Toronto Star reported allegations that the Ward 2 councillor “slapped” and “shook” a player on the field during a confrontation.

Mr. Ford’s has repeatedly denied the claims. His campaign contends the player swore at the Mr. Ford after the councillor pulled him from the game, and that Mr. Ford never made physical contact with the player.

Two police officers arrested a would-be thief after he allegedly cut in front of them in line at a Starbucks and attempted to rob the store.

On July 24, two officers in New Westminster, B.C., were speaking with the Starbucks employee when a 43-year-old man cut in front of the the till. Apparently oblivious of the police presence, the man walked directly to the cash and demanded the employee give him money from the till.

He proceeded to throw a large beverage at the barista, but missed, New Westminster Police said in a statement.

The officers immediately arrested the individual and held him in custody for the weekend.

Oddly, this wasn’t the first interaction the two officers had with the man that hour.

Minutes before, they walked out the door of police headquarters to grab a quick coffee at the Starbucks location located across the street. They encountered and exchanged pleasantries with the man they would later arrest, said Const. Bruce Carrie of the New Westminster Police Service.

Police charged the man, whose name has not been released, with robbery and assault.

“The French fries industry and consumers will have to brace themselves for shorter fries,” said spokeswoman Verena Telaar, adding that smaller potatoes mean that fries will probably be 45 millimeters (1.8 inches) long at best, down from the usual 55 mm (2.2 inches).

But fear not, Canadian fry fiends: our most famous potato-producing province isn’t expecting any “shortage.”

“We’ve had excellent growing weather…as good as I’ve seen it in a number of years” said Greg Donald, spokesperson for the Prince Edward Island Potato Board. “The harvest is ahead of schedule and it looks good.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/17-year-old-trades-up-from-a-clunky-cell-phone-to-a-porsche/feed/1stdCellphoneFrank Gehry’s boyhood home set to be replaced by a condohttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/frank-gehrys-boyhood-home-set-to-be-replaced-by-a-condo
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/frank-gehrys-boyhood-home-set-to-be-replaced-by-a-condo#commentsMon, 26 Jul 2010 15:15:42 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=16990

Mr. Gehry, born Ephraim Goldberg, lived at his grandmother’s abode at 15 Beverley Street from 1929 to 1947. The house stands just blocks away from the Art Gallery of Ontario, which received a Gehry-designed makeover in 2008.

The house is listed as a heritage site, but does not have official heritage designation (the latter classification would go further to protect the house from demolition).

BlogTO finds virtue in the condo that’s set to replace the block where the house currently stands:

It’s not, however, all bad: the condo planned for the site has many positive attributes. 12 Degrees, from the developer BSAR, is a ten-storey building that fits into the context of the streetscape pretty well. It also features an intriguing, twisted design that’s unique for condo architecture. The firm responsible, Core Architects, has designed several of the recent additions to King West.

A clue to what Mr. Gehry would think of the urban facelift may lie in his choice of places to live. A longtime Los Angeles resident, he told Vanity Fair this year that “L.A. is a city free of the burdens of history.”

The Ontario government announced on Monday tough new conditions for young drivers.

Ontario Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne told a press conference that, effective August 1 all drivers under 22 will be required to maintain a blood alcohol content of zero. Currently, the legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers with G-level licenses is 0.05%.

Young drivers who are caught drinking and driving will be served with an immediate 24-hour roadside license suspension and face thirty-day license suspension and up to $500 in fines.

The province is also introducing tougher penalties for all drivers who are caught with a blood-alcohol level that exceeds the legal limits. A first offence will yield a 30-day license suspension and a second will yield a 90-day license suspension. Drivers caught violating the rules for third time will have their licenses revoked.